An Easter Tale… Well Not Quite; Hmmm, Not Even Close?

April 11, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 21 Comments

rasputin B&W copy — Rasputin the Cat hosting rhinoceros beetles in Liberia, Africa circa 1966.

It’s that time of the year when chickens lay brightly colored eggs and bunny rabbits hide them for children to find. It’s an Easter tradition that is even more important this year when children (and their parents) can use a little old-fashioned fun. By rights, I should have a chicken, egg, and bunny story to tell. But I don’t. I do, however, have a cat and rooster story. It will have to do. Join me as I travel back in time to when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa and Rasputin the Cat and the Cockle Doodle Rooster hatched a plot to wake me up early every morning. (I adapted this story from my book, “The Bush Devil Ate Sam.”)

Jo Ann, my first wife, and I raised Rasputin from a kitten. He had grown into one fine cat, or sweet meat as my students said. They’d tease me by coming by and pinching him to see how fat he had become. Then they would stand around discussing whether he was ready for the stew pot.

Rasputin’s primary entertainment was stalking dogs. You knew when he was at work because the neighborhood dogs carefully avoided the tall clumps of grass where he liked to hide. He was particularly obnoxious when it was windy. He would hide up-wind and make it more difficult for the dogs to sniff him out. I felt for the poor dog that came too close.

A streak of yellow and a yip of surprise proclaimed his attack. What made his behavior particularly strange was that he came at the dogs on his two hind legs, walking upright. This allowed both front legs to be used as slashing weapons. It was the wise dog that steered clear.

His other form of entertainment was more cat like. He liked the girls. Each night he would ask to go out around 10 and we wouldn’t seen him until the next morning. I was fine with this. Who was I to get in the way of true love? I was less tolerant of his returning around 5:30 and insisting that I let him in. He did this by practicing his operatic meows under our bedroom window.

Since no amount of suggesting that he should change his behavior discouraged him, I jumped out of bed one morning and chased him across the yard. This got Jo Ann excited. Our cat was going “to run away and never come back.” She may have also been concerned about the neighbor’s reaction to my charging out of the house naked. That type of thing bothered her. I promised to repent and assured her that the cat would be back in time for dinner. He was.

There were occasions when Rasputin’s tomcatting kept him out beyond his normal 5:30 appearance. I’m convinced that he made a deal with the rooster next door to wake us in his absence. I didn’t make this correlation until the rooster crowed directly under our window one morning at 5:30. Even then I thought it was just a coincidence until the rooster repeated himself the next day.

It wasn’t just the crowing that irritated me; it was the nature of the crow. American and European roosters go cock-a-doodle-do. Even urban children know this because that’s how it is spelled out in books. Liberian roosters go cock-a-doodle— and stop. You are constantly waiting for the other ‘do’ to drop.

“This crowing under our window,” I thought to myself, “has to be nipped in the bud.”

That evening I filled a bucket with water and put it next to my bed. Sure enough, at 5:30 the next morning there he was: “COCK-A-DOODLE!” I jumped up, grabbed my bucket, and threw the water out the window on the unsuspecting fowl. “Squawk!” I heard as one very wet and irritated rooster headed home as fast as his little rooster legs could carry him.

“Chicken,” I yelled out after his departing body. “And that,” I said to Jo Ann, “should be the end of this particular problem.”

I was inspired though. Cats don’t think much of getting wet either. What if I kept a bucket of water next to the bed and dumped it on Rasputin the next time he woke us up at 5:30. Jo couldn’t even blame me for running outside naked. With warm thoughts of having solved two problems with one bucket, I went to bed that night loaded for cat, so to speak.

“COCK-A-DOODLE” roared the rooster outside our window promptly at 5:30.

“Damn,” I thought, “that boy is one slow learner.”

I fell out of bed, grabbed the bucket and dashed for the window. There was no rooster there. I looked up and spotted him about 20 feet away running full tilt. He had slipped up on us, crowed and taken off! My opinion of the rooster took a paradigm leap. Here was one worthy opponent. The question was how to respond.

It took me a couple of days of devious thinking to arrive at a solution. What would happen if I recorded the rooster on a tape recorder and then played it back? I had a small tape recorder that I used for exchanging letters with my dad so I set myself the task of capturing the rooster’s fowl language. Since he had an extensive harem he liked to crow about, it wasn’t long before I had a dozen or so cock-a-doodles on tape. I rewound the recorder, cranked up the volume and set it up next to our front screen door.

The results were hilarious. Within seconds the rooster was on our porch, jumping up and down and screaming ‘cock-a-doodle.’ There was a rooster inside of our house that had invaded his territory and he was going to tear him apart, feather-by-feather. Laughing I picked up the recorder, rewound it, carried to the back screen door, and hit the play button.

“Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle,” I could hear the rooster as he roared around to the back of house to get at his implacable foe. Back and forth I went, front to back, back to front. And around and around the house the rooster went, flinging out his challenges.

Finally, having laughed myself to exhaustion, I took pity on my feathered friend and shut the recorder off. This just about concludes the rooster story, but not quite.

One Friday evening, Jo and I had been celebrating the end of another week of teaching with gin and tonics until the wee hours when we decided to see how the rooster would respond to his nemesis at one o’clock in the morning. Considering our 5:30 am wakeup calls, we felt there was a certain amount of justice in the experiment. I set it up the recorder and played a “Cock-a-doodle.”

“COCK-A-DOODLE?!” was the immediate response. No challenge was to go unanswered. “Cock-a-doodle” we heard as roosters from the Superintendent’s compound checked in. “Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle” we heard in the distance as town roosters rose to the challenge. Soon every rooster in Gbarnga was awake, and probably every resident.

We decided to keep our early morning rooster-arousing episode to ourselves.

Hope you enjoyed the tale. There are several more about Rasputin in the book. A very Happy Easter to each of you from Peggy and me. Be safe and stay healthy!

Athens: Part 2… Armchair Travel in the Age of Coronavirus

April 10, 2020April 6, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 18 Comments

I continue my exploration of Athens today as part of my armchair travel series, dipping back into my hundreds of archived posts. You will learn what gave Zeus a splitting headache. Hint: It wasn’t Covid-19.

The massive Temple of Zeus located near the base of the Acropolis.

We like our gods to have a touch of humanity. The Greek gods had more than their share. They would party on Olympus, chase after the opposite sex, and constantly intervene in human affairs. They could be jealous, revengeful and petty but they could also be generous and protective. It was good to have one on your side.

The replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee has a replica of what the statue of Athena located in the historic Parthenon may have looked like. — The replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee has a fully sized model of what the statue of Athena located in the historic Parthenon may have looked like. I think the spear alone would have given Zeus a headache.

Each Greek city-state would choose a god to be its special protector. With Athens, it was Athena. Both the Parthenon and the Erechtheion on the Acropolis (featured on my last blog) were built in her honor. Athena, according to Greek mythology, sprang fully grown and armed from the head of Zeus. Not surprisingly, Zeus had a massive headache prior to her birth. You might call it a splitting headache. His son, Hephaestus, god of the forge and blacksmiths, took his mighty chisel and split opened Zeus’s head, thus releasing Athena and relieving Zeus.

Zeus was also honored in Athens with a massive temple located near the base of the Acropolis. In addition to being the king of the gods and father of Athena, he was a notorious womanizer. He married his sister Hera, who was constantly trying to thwart his womanizing ways. One of Zeus’s more famous trysts was with the renowned beauty Leda. Zeus seduced her in the guise of a swan, so the story goes. It was a favorite subject of Renaissance Painters. One result of the seduction was that Leda went home and laid an egg, from which the even more beautiful Helen of Troy was hatched.

Our guides took us to see the Zeus temple and then on to visit site of the 2004 Summer Olympics. We stopped off to watch the changing of the guards in front of the Prime Minister’s official seat of government and hurried on to a very expensive restaurant that our guides had selected. I assume they received a handsome kickback. Sadly, our time was running out and we returned to the ship. Other sites would have to wait for another time.

A side view of the Temple of Zeus in Athens looking grey against grey skies.

Another photo of the Zeus Temple in Athens. This one features the upper part of the columns with their Corinthian tops. — Another photo of the Zeus Temple in Athens. This one features the upper part of the columns with their tops decorated in the Corinthian style.

In 1852 a storm topped one of the massive columns from the Temple of Zeus and it has remained there ever since.

We watched as guards high stepped their way through the Changing of the Guards at the Prime Ministers seat of government. — We watched as guards high stepped their way through the Changing of the Guards at the Prime Minister’s seat of government. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

I found the choice of shoes, um, interesting. At least the guards were guaranteed warm toes on a cold night.

The site of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens features a statue of a discus thrower winding up to throw.

One of several courses from our expensive Greek lunch.

Peggy and I and pose with our two Greek guides. As I recall, their cousins owned the restaurant.

On Monday I will feature ten activities to keep away the blues during home-sheltering. They may not all be for you— such as capturing ground squirrels or searching for trees that might fit into Lord of the Rings or some other fantasy. (We have a whole forest of them.) Other’s might strike a chord. For example, most parents are now learning a lot more about home-schooling than they ever wanted to learn. But how about home-schooling for adults?

Athens: Part 1… Armchair Travel in the Time of Coronavirus

April 8, 2020April 6, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 17 Comments

The Acropolis with its graceful Parthenon shown above is probably the wold’s most famous historic site.

I continue to reach back into my archives today to provide more armchair adventures as the world reels under the coronavirus pandemic. Like you, Peggy and I are ‘sheltering at home’ while reliving past travel experiences and dreaming of future ones. They will come.

Athens was grumpy. Several years of extravagant spending by the Greek government and its citizens had come home to roost. The European Union had required steep austerity measures in Greece as the price of a pulling the nation back from the brink of fiscal chaos. Nothing was spared from spending cuts including social services, wages and pensions. A massive influx of impoverished immigrants and a nascent neo-Nazi movement added to the country’s woes. Everyone was expected to make sacrifices to help solve the crisis.

Since sacrifices are best made by someone else, there had been massive strikes and violence in the country.

Standing near the Temple of Zeus, we watched as yet another group of protestors hit the streets of Athens.

We didn’t know what to expect but had decided to see Athens on our own. Tours offered by the cruise line are very expensive. They help assure a healthy profit margin. There is little encouragement for independent exploration. No handy-dandy sheets are handed out saying this is what you should do if you want to see such and such on your own.

Normally our self-guided tours worked great but Athens proved to be challenging.

From the moment we stepped off the ship, taxi drivers offering tours inundated us. Tourism had dropped with the fiscal crisis and was dropping even farther with the end of the tourist season. The air of desperation turned to rudeness when it was discovered we were planning to use public transit. Finding the right bus stop and the right bus turned out difficult, however. When we finally did find the bus, it was leaving. Out of frustration I turned to a taxi driver. We were able to hire two taxis for an all day tour for the six of us that was substantially less than the cruise tours.

Was it worth all the hassle? Absolutely.

Much of who we are in the West evolved from what happened in the City State of Athens between 500 and 350 BC. We visited the cradle of democracy and walked where Socrates and Plato had walked. We climbed up the Acropolis and admired the Parthenon and other buildings that have been a major inspiration for Western architecture for 2000 years. We watched the changing of the guard at the Prime Minister’s residence, visited the site of the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, and concluded our tour with an expensive but excellent Greek meal.

If you are a history buff, as I am, having your photo taken with the Parthenon as a backdrop is a true privilege. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

This corner shot shows one of the few statues that remain of many that once decorated the Parthenon. (Many can be found in the British Museum.) — A close up of the corner shown behind me above features one of the few statues that remain of many that once decorated the Parthenon. (Many can be found in the British Museum.)

Extensive renovation work is being done on the Parthenon, as well as other buildings on the Acropolis. ( Photo by Peggy Mekemson) — Extensive renovation work was being done on the Parthenon, as well as other buildings on the Acropolis. ( Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

A full-scale replica of the Parthenon as it would have looked like originally can be found in Nashville, Tennessee. We stopped by to check it out after our Mediterranean tour while visiting with our daughter and her family. — A full-scale replica of the Parthenon as it would have looked like originally can be found in Nashville, Tennessee. We stopped by to check it out after our Mediterranean tour while visiting with our daughter Natasha and her family.

My grandson Ethan provides an interesting perspective in this Nashville photo on the original size of the Parthenon. — My grandson Ethan provided an interesting perspective in this Nashville photo on the original size of the Parthenon.

Another impressive building on the Acropolis is the Erechtheion. An olive tree decorates the front of the building.

Another important building on the Acropolis is the Erechtheion, which includes the Porch of the Caryatids, lovely Greek maidens who have been turned into graceful columns. — The Erechtheion includes the Porch of the Caryatids, lovely Greek maidens who served as graceful columns. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

A close up of the Elechtheion, windows, and an olive tree representing Athena's gift to Athens. — A close up of the Erechtheion, windows, and an olive tree representing Athena’s gift to Athens.

This is a shot looking upward at the end of the Erechtheon opposite the Porch of the Caryatids. — This is a shot looking upward at the end of the Erechtheion opposite the Porch of the Caryatids.

Looking upward at the Temple of Nike on the Acropolis. — A final view: The Temple of Nike on the Acropolis.

On Friday we will return to Athens and discover what gave Zeus his horrendous headache.

On Sharing Your Writing Space with a Pregnant Deer…

April 6, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 33 Comments

I was walking up to my writing place on the edge of the national forest when I ran into Floppy. “You are looking a little pregnant, Girl” I told her. She gave me the look and laid back her ears. “There is no such thing as being a little pregnant, Curt” she said primly in deer language. And she should know. She’s been dropping babies on our property for the past several years.

Her two teenagers were hanging out in the grass 10-yards away. Floppy has been urging them to leave home lately. I saw one dashing down the hill yesterday with Floppy hot on its heels. This isn’t cruelty; it’s normal doe behavior. Floppy is about to have her fawn and the teenagers hanging around will give away its hiding spot to any number of predators.

I have several writing places around our property. In general, all that is required is a flat spot and a comfortable chair. And a view. Inclement weather normally calls for a more protected environment, preferably with heat. Thermometer-busting heat also sends me scurrying inside. This time with air-conditioning. I’m such a wimp. But the view is still required. As I mentioned on Friday, the variety has proven particularly valuable in the Age of Coronavirus. It helps counter the stir-crazy feeling of isolation.

It can’t decide whether to rain, or snow this morning. Blue skies are predicted for this afternoon and seventy-degree weather later in the week. It’s spring! I started writing this morning at 5:30 in the living room and then moved back to the bedroom at 7:00. Peggy, on occasion (2-3 times a week), likes to be served breakfast in bed. Who doesn’t? And she likes company. Nine a.m. is our limit for getting up and about, however, and I have now landed in the library.

My living room view, assuming of course that the sun has come up. The Red Buttes are looking a little wintry today.

My bedroom writing location. Peggy has already vacated the premises but she returned to take the photo. The gorgeous quilt is one she made.

Today I am going to take you on a tour of my favorite outside spots. I’ll start from the top and work down.

Quivera the Van’s home in the pole barn makes an excellent writing space. It is both protected and outside. It also sits on the edge of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. I took this photo from the national forest sign that marks the edge of our property.

Peggy took this photo of me working in my comfy chair.

A view down our road from my writing chair.

Another advantage of the pole barn is that Quivera provides an even more protected place to write. She also comes with a stove for making coffee or tea and a restroom. This, BTW, is my writing place when we travel in the van.

My next writing place is down the hill and sits on the edge of our canyon. The round object is my Weber smoker.

It’s a good place to write and watch baby-back ribs smoke. The three handprints were put on the shed by our grandsons Ethan and Cody plus our neighbor William when they helped paint the shed a few years ago. The coffee table is our old safe re-purposed. And no, it is not stuffed with cash!

While Peggy was taking my photo, one of the kids showed up to check out what we were doing. It even came with a teenager mohawk! (Actually it is shedding its winter coat.)

Here I am writing on our patio. The table is covered with a large patio umbrella that works as a sunshade. We find bats sleeping in the folds of the umbrella on occasion when we open it. Eventually, they fly off.

Our back porch also comes with a writing chair. The window is the library window that provides my view of the backyard. The extra chair is for visitors. My Weber grill is much smaller than the one that used to live in its space. A very large bear came up on our porch and tipped it over on a dark night. It made a big bang.

I have no problem filling the visitor’s chair.

While most of my views from the porch are the same as the library, I can check out the side hill with its white oaks (the deer like to lie up there and chew their cuds).

Or look up the hill behind Quivera where Peggy and I do much of our hiking. It’s a great escape and exercise as we hang out at home. It’s a lot higher than this photo implies— about a thousand feet!

I can also admire the beautiful madrone that stands next to the porch and provides welcome shade in the summer. Deer like to sleep at its base.

And finally, there is our sunroom, lit up here by the early morning sun.

Except on hot days, it is always a prime location to write.

The views are always great, but a storm adds drama.

If I need a break, I can talk to the giraffe…

Or if I am suffering from a particularly bad case of writer’s block, watch Peggy’s sunflowers grow.

I’ll conclude with a final photo of the sunroom. Romantic, eh? I caught the picture when I was rolling our garbage can down to the road! Oh yeah, one final thing. Thats not a squirrel up on the roof. It’s the top of a tree on the other side.

WEDNESDAY’S POST: It’s off to Athens as part of my armchair series.

Observations on Writing, Eeyore, Bone and a Woodpecker During the Time of Covid-19

April 4, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 25 Comments

Eeyore dons a face mask for a trip to the grocery store. He’s out of carrots.

Word-smiths are able to handle seclusion better than most people. Self-isolation provides writers with the focus needed to craft sentences. At least that’s true for me. The smallest interruption in the middle of a creative moment and zap— it’s gone. And boy is it grumpy about coming back! Of course, life is full of interruptions. The phone rings. More often than not, it’s a spam call. I have won a free cruise. All I have to do is buy a time-share. Woohoo.

More common, Peggy has something to share. Nothing unusual about that. As a husband and friend, it is my duty to listen and respond— in a positive way. I think she wrote that into our wedding vows. We’ve been happily married for 28 years, so I guess I’ve passed that test. And vice-versa. But Peggy is also sensitive to my needs as a writer. She made me a small hanging quilt with two sides. The side with books on it means I am writing. It’s quiet time. She walks by and smiles at me while pretending to zip her mouth. The little devil. Or plants a quick, quiet kiss on my lips. No way I can object to that. Or brings me a cookie still hot from the oven. Now she just walked out to fit me for a coronavirus mask she is sewing. But, for the most part, she honors the sign.

I asked Peggy if I could take a photo of demonstrating the smile and the zip. She held up a book, Mission to Civilize. I think she was referring to her efforts to civilize me, a 30-year effort with few results to date. “I have more time, now,” she said. Should I be worried? Hmmmm.

Here’s the mask that she sewed for me. Our county now requires wearing masks when we are out in public. It reminded me of wearing dust masks at Burning Man…

Which led me to grab my Burning Man hat and shades. I’m ready for the Playa. Whoops, it’s been cancelled.

In case you are curious about how serious Peggy is about this mask business, she even made one for our elephant. They have big trunks, right. Think big sneezes!

Suddenly, we hear a squeak from the book case. It’s Bone, self-isolating in his Bone Cave, demanding that Peggy make him a face mask, too.

Of course Peggy does. Bone requests that I take his picture with some rapids in his background to remind him of the 43 years he has travelled the world before coronavirus. For those of you not familiar with Bone, I’ve placed the Bone Interview in my pages above. And added a question about Covid-19. His answer isn’t for tender ears.

Eeyore goes into a tizzy when the pandemic is mentioned. It’s worse than misplacing his tail. Here I give him a little TLC. Or maybe he is giving me the TLC?

I turn the quilt over when I am not writing as my part of the bargain. There are lots of things I do related to working on my blogs or books that don’t require the same concentration. Doing research and processing photos are two examples. Interruptions are okay, even welcome. Except for spam calls. I particularly like the kisses and warm cookies.

“Darn, Curt has his writing sign up. I have to be quiet. Maybe if I bring him a warm cookie…”

“Yay! Curt’s turned the sign around. Now where’s my list of 25 things I need to talk about.”

Like many writers, I discovered that I can also work in coffee houses. In fact, I like to. The noise of people talking becomes background, a form of white noise. It’s a way I can have human companionship while still being able to focus on writing. Plus, it gets me out of the house. When I lived in Sacramento, I would start my day with a 5-mile hike along the American River and then head for one of my favorite coffee houses for a couple of hours of uninterrupted writing. And then move on to another, and another.

It’s not so easy now. We live 30 miles from town, on the edge of being off-the-grid. Try as I might, it is really hard to justify making a 60-mile round trip into Medford so I can spend a couple of hours writing, or even several hours. Coronavirus has eliminated even that option. I make do here. It’s not hard. As most of you know, Peggy and I live on a beautifully wooded five acres with the Applegate River on one side and the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on the other. Views of the Red Buttes, still covered in snow, dominate our views out the front. It’s a great place to write— or hide out from Covid-19.

My primary writing space is the library. I am surrounded by books and reminders of our travels for inspiration. The major attraction, however, is my window on nature. My chair turns so I can either stare at books or check the action outside. Right now, a pair of rosy finches are pecking it out over who gets first right to the bird feeder while two grey squirrels are chasing each other around and around a tree trunk. Love is in the air.

Few things give Peggy and me more comfort than books. They are even more important now.

Our library is also filled with memories of our travels. This hanging is from Alaska. Peggy found the quilt hanging kit in a quilting shop in Anchorage.

The downside here is that nature itself serves as an interruption! And the woodland creatures don’t give a hoot which way my quilt is facing. Of course, I can turn around or look down, but how do you ignore a deer looking in the window, or bringing a fawn by, or a pair of bucks fighting over who gets the doe. Or a whole herd coming by while I am working on this post…

Are you in there? Are you okay? Where’s my apple?

“So this is what happens when I do that! I’m outta here…”

The fawns are so tiny when their moms first bring them by.

The deer really cooperated when I was working on this post. The whole herd showed up when they heard they could get their photo on the blog. They are admittedly looking a bit scruffy. This is the time of the year when they shed their winter coats.

The creature that wins the trophy for the most flagrant violation of my quiet time is a male flicker. These large members of the woodpecker family would normally win their lady loves by holding drumming contests on hollow logs. He who drums loudest wins fair maiden’s heart. You know how that goes. One particularly large fellow has discovered that drumming on our vents creates a noise louder than the loudest log. To us it sounds like someone is using a jackhammer on our roof. And the ladies gather round. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve discussed his obnoxious behavior with him— or lobbed pebbles in his direction— it’s rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. Over and over again.

But even here with all the beauty and wildlife to amuse me, I get restless. The need to wander is buried deep in my soul. Fortunately, there is a temporary solution. I’ve designated a number of different locations inside and outside as writing spaces. When I get itchy feet, I move between them. And that, my friends, will be the subject of Monday’s blog.

And finally. There has been a lot of confusion about how best to test for coronavirus on the national level, in case you haven’t noticed. This isn’t the way.

Santorini Churches… Armchair Travel

April 1, 2020March 31, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 27 Comments

Darn, I thought to myself as I checked my blogs for Santorini. I’ve done a lot on the island. I can’t seem to help myself— it is so beautiful and unique. I really thought about doing something different today, but I had promised Santorini. Plus, as noted, I can’t resist. When I found a post on the churches I had done in 2013, I decided to put it up in hopes that there might be a few photos I haven’t shared on my blog four or five times. 🙂 Still, even if you have seen these, they are always worthy of seeing again!

The Church of St. George in Oia, Santorini. Most, but not all of Santorini's churches featured a blue dome. — The Church of St. George in Oia, Santorini. Most, but not all of Santorini’s churches featured a blue dome.

Europe is filled with great churches that are known as much for their art and architecture as they are for religion. Our cruise through the Mediterranean would take us to some of the world’s most renowned cathedrals. While the churches on the Greek Island of Santorini are no match for the splendor of what you find in Venice, Rome or Florence, they have a subtle beauty and uniqueness of their own. The following photos are meant to capture something of their beauty.

This is a close up of the bell tower on the Church of St. George in Oia, Santorini. The bell towers throught the town were as unique as the churches. — This is a close up of the bell tower on the Church of St. George in Oia, Santorini. The bell towers throughout the town were as unique as the churches.

I found this church with its white rocks surreal.

A view of the same church seen in the photo above from behind.

This church provided and interesting backdrop for the homes in front. — This church provided an interesting backdrop for the homes in front. I also liked the fun play of light and shadow.

The Church of Panagia provides a gateway into Oia on Santorini. Once again, dramatic clouds added interest to our day of photography. (Photograph by Peggy Mekemson)

The bell tower of the Church of Panagia in Oia, Santorini.

Another of Santorini's uniquely beautiful churches. — Another of Santorini’s uniquely beautiful churches.

I like this church on Santorini because of its almost sensuous lines. Can a church be sensuous? Having the Mediterranean for a backdrop didn't hurt either. — I like this church on Santorini because of its almost sensuous lines. Can a church be sensuous? Having the Mediterranean for a backdrop didn’t hurt either.

This is another perspective on the Santorini church shown above featuring its salmon colored bell tower.

My concluding photo on the beautiful and unique churches found on the Greek island of Santorini.

FRIDAY’S BLOG: Assuming the weather cooperates, I thought it would be fun to share my seven different offices on the property. If I am feeling the least bit stir crazy during the lock down, I move! (Grin.)

Mykonos: Armchair Travel in the Time of Coronavirus

March 30, 2020March 29, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 34 Comments

Peggy and I are continuing to self-isolate ourselves, as are so many of you. Medford, Oregon, the medium sized town where we do most of our shopping, is on the edge of becoming a coronavirus hotspot. (Nowhere is safe.) We have zero desire to go there and have enough food— and wine— that we don’t have to for a couple of weeks. I even have older blogs to repurpose. (Grin.) Something like 900. I’ve been blogging for 10 years. Last week I re-posted a blog on the Greek island of Corfu. Today is Mykonos. Stay safe.

The area known as Little Venice is one of many charming sites on Mykonos. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

The maze-like town of Mykonos (Chora) was designed to discourage invasion. It was easy for invaders to get lost in the narrow, winding streets that ran into other narrow, winding streets that ran into other narrow, winding streets.

Modern day invaders, otherwise known as tourists, also find it easy to get lost. But that’s half the fun. Except for finding a restroom when you really, really need it, there is no danger. You can easily spend an hour or several wandering along the town’s crooked roads and paths. There are beautiful white buildings slathered in stucco to admire, shops to explore, and cats to photograph. You may even find a Greek musician playing the bouzouki, a mandolin-like instrument that produces what most people think of as Greek music. Picture Zorba dancing.

White is the common color for buildings on Mykonos, Santorini and other islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea.

One of the main streets in Myconos. — One of the main streets in Mykonos. This road is freeway size in comparison to most routes through the town.

Routes through Mykonos are much more likely to look like this. Note the blue trim used to add color to windows and doors.

This blue Mykonos door is decorated by a cactus.

My wife Peggy on the right and two of our traveling companions, Kathi and Frances stand in front of another blue door.

Bougainvillea seems to be the flower of choice in Mykonos.

A street musician entertained us by playing his bouzouki…

And a cat confiscated a cafe chair for its mid day snooze. — And a cat confiscated a cafe chair for its midday snooze.

We managed to get both lost and separated. There was no hope of finding each other in the labyrinth, but fortunately we had a plan. We would meet at the island’s famous windmills. Long since retired, five of them remain hunkered down on a ridge south of town. Mykonos is noted for its winds. The locals even have names for them based on their intensity: bell-ringer, chair thrower, and knock you off your horse. We experienced a brief example of chair thrower but fortunately missed knock you off your horse.

The windmills used cloth sails to capture the winds and run mills for grinding grain. Local bakeries then turned the grain into sea biscuits, aka hardtack, which is flour and water baked several times into a consistency of hardness just this side of rock. The value of sea biscuits is they are basically indestructible. Before modern refrigeration, they were used on long sea voyages. Throw in a lime plus a generous dollop of rum and it was dinner. Producing these ‘delicacies’ was the island’s main industry.

One of the windmills of Mykonos. Dark clouds brought brief rain and a "throw a chair" wind. — One of the windmills of Mykonos. Dark clouds brought brief rain and a “chair thrower” wind. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

Following the coastline back into town we came upon Little Venice (pictured above), a community where sea captains of yore built mini-mansions perched on the ocean edge. Since it neither looks like Venice nor has canals, my thoughts are its name is derived from its proximity to water. Either that or a real estate agent was involved. The community is quite colorful, however. I’d be glad to call it home.

Mykonos has some 70 churches to meet the needs of its 7000 residents, which seems like a lot. I am reminded of the number of Baptist churches found in the rural South of the United States. When I was traveling through East Texas on my bicycle in 1989, I estimated there was one for each family. The Mykonosians had a unique use for their churches, however. They enshrined the bones of their dead relatives in the walls. I doubt the Baptists do this but it might give new meaning to the old saying, “the family that prays together, stays together.”

Scrunched between Little Venice and the harbor is the Church of Panagia Paraportiani, the most unusual church on the Mykonos. Once upon a time five different chapels existed side by side. Then they morphed together into what has become one of the most photographed sites on the island, with reason. We contributed our share of picture-taking.

The small harbor area of Mykonos definitely fits the description of picturesque. It was our last stop (except for lunch) on our way back to the ship. That’s where we met Petros the Pelican.

We have this photo of Petros on our living room wall.

Petros playing ghost? Or possibly drying his wings cormorant style.

Unfortunately, it was Sunday and the local fishermen had taken the day off. We satisfied ourselves with admiring the boats. The area also features a small beach that would be crammed with sun worshippers in the summer. Now all it featured was golden sand and blue sea.

Idle fishing boats in the Mykonos harbor.

The golden sands and blue waters of the Aegean Sea of the small beach in Mykonos. — The golden sands and blue waters of the Aegean Sea of the small beach in Mykonos is a good place to end this post..

WEDNESDAY’S BLOG: Santorini. I’ve posted on this more recently but this beautiful island is always worth revisiting.

We Visited Crater Lake National Park Last Week… Just Before It Closed

March 27, 2020March 26, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 46 Comments

Crater Lake National Park is renowned for its beauty and the deep blue color of its water. It has an icy blue look here. Peggy took this photo from the Rim Village. Scott Mountain dominates in the distance. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

The massive, 12-mile-high Mt. Mazama blew its top 7000 years ago. Local Native American legend claims that it had gone to war with Mt. Shasta, a hundred miles to the south. Mazama lost. It wasn’t that the massive explosion used up all of its bullets, aka lava. The problem was that using the magma emptied out the large chamber beneath the mountain and the weight of the Mazama brought it crashing down into the empty chamber, leaving behind a large crater or caldera to use the technical term. The caldera filled with water and voila! Crater Lake was born.

Photo by Curtis Mekemson. — A photo I took of Mt. Shasta. Had Mt. Mazuma survived its explosion of 7,000 years ago, it may have looked something like this.

Peggy and I visited the National Park a week ago. It’s about a 2 ½ hour drive from our house. We drove up by ourselves and were careful to keep the virus-safe distance from the relatively few other people who were visiting. One individual insisted on invading our space, however…

This fellow apparently thought sniffing my shoe was more important than maintaining the 6 feet recommended to avoid coronavirus. “What are you thinking, guy?” I asked. “It’s a girl,” Peggy informed me. “She’s wearing pink.”

We had visited Crater Lake twice last summer and were eager to see it in the winter covered with snow. We were really glad we did. For one, it was as beautiful as we had expected it would be— and, two, the park closed on Tuesday because of coronavirus. The odds are that it will be closed until long after the snow melts. Here’s a map and some of the photos that Peggy and I took.

This National Park map provides an overview of the lake. Peggy and I were at Rim Village. The road around the lake is closed in winter and doesn’t open again until sometime in the summer. Wizard Mountain is on the left. The sheer cliffs around the lake are obvious. The lake is 1978 feet deep at its deepest spot. It is 6.2 by 4.5 miles across.

I’ve never met a tree stump I didn’t want to photograph. Let me put this one into perspective…

Wizard Island provided a backdrop. Llao Rock, named after the Klamath Indian god of the underworld rears up behind the island. The deep blue water reflects both Wizard Island and the clouds above the lake.

A close up of Wizard Island. It is actually a small volcano that rose up from the lake’s floor. You can visit it by boat if you are willing to walk the thousand feet to the water. Afterwards, you get to hike the thousand feet back up. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Other than the one trail, it’s a long way to fall to get to the lake and there are plenty of signs to warn you. The smaller sign forbids the use of drones.

This photo gives a perspective on the steep drop.

The cliffs as seen looking across the lake. I liked the impressionist-like reflection. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Impressive rock formations surround Crater Lake. This one is located south of the Rim Village. I believe it is Garfield Peak.

These were on the opposite side of the lake above Wizard Island. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

This is the trail that took us from the parking lot into the Rim Village overlook. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

This photo of two of the buildings at the Crater Lake Rim Village also provide a look at the depth of the snow. The trail leads over to the lakes rim. I rendered the photo in black and white.

Peggy captured two fun photos of the roof. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

And the left edge of the building. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

All of the snow demanded a snow angel and I volunteered Peggy.

It came out three dimensional! Peggy thought it was a bit spooky. Something took a big chunk out of her side. (It was from her knee getting up.)

As always, we wandered around taking random photos. One of mine included this tree with its bone-colored limbs.

Peggy caught these backpackers on snowshoes.

Speaking of backpackers, the Pacific Crest Trail runs through the park. We didn’t see any through hikers, which wasn’t surprising. This is the restroom at the trailhead! Peggy and I will likely backpack through the park starting here this coming summer.

I’ll conclude today’s post with a selfie of Peggy and me at the Lake’s edge— our last visit before lockdown. 🙂

Corfu: Armchair Travel in the Time of Coronavirus

March 25, 2020March 24, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 31 Comments

A view of Corfu with its multi-colored buildings and tree covered hills. I took this photo looking down from the Old Fort. — A view of Corfu on a misty day with its multi-colored buildings and tree covered hills. I took this photo looking down from the Old Fortress.

Seven years ago, Peggy and I made a trip to Europe and cruised the Mediterranean along with her brother John, his wife Frances, and two of their friends Lee and Kathi. Now that our wings are clipped due to coronavirus, I decided a little armchair travel might help satisfy my thwarted desire to travel. Instead of ‘wandering through time and place,’ I am wandering in place. You are invited along…

“The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of spring.” Lawrence Durrell

I was visiting the Pioneer Bookstore in Placerville when I was first introduced to Lawrence Durrell and the Greek Island of Corfu. The bookstore was a favorite hangout of mine during my senior year in high school in 1960 and George Yohalem, the owner, had become a mentor, helping guide my 17-year-old mind to a number of good books. He and his wife Betty had retired to the foothills of California after long careers in Hollywood where George had worked as a screenwriter and she as an actress.

I had picked up a new book that had just arrived and read the first couple of pages. Since it looked interesting, I carried it over to George for advice. “It’s quite good,” he had told me, “but don’t tell your mother that I recommended it.” That caught my attention.

The book was “Justine” by Lawrence Durrell. The quote above is the first line in the book and Durrell is describing Corfu. He had lived there from 1935-40 and fallen in love with the island. “Justine” became one of my first ventures into serious literature and definitely my first venture into erotic literature— thus George’s admonition. The book transfixed me, not so much by the sex (well, maybe a little), but by the sheer mastery of the language and the sense of the exotic. I was picked up and dropped into Corfu and then Alexandria… the main setting for “Justine” and the other three books in the Alexandria Quartet. It was magic.

Durrell wasn’t the only author to find Corfu a touch exotic. Homer had the ship wrecked Odysseus land on the island during his long journey and Shakespeare used it for the setting of Prospero’s magical realm in The Tempest. In Corfu’s long history Corinthians, Romans, Venetians, French and English had occupied the island as a gateway to both the East and West. At one point, the feared pirate Barbarossa laid siege to Corfu and succeeded in enslaving a substantial portion of its population.

Corfu’s location in the Ionian Sea sets it apart from its Greek cousins Santorini and Mykonos in the Aegean Sea. We found no more sparkling white washed buildings perched on treeless terrain. Corfu is an island covered with over a million olive trees and its buildings are multi-hued with a well-lived-in look. Two massive forts serve as bookends for its main town, also known as Corfu. We wandered through its winding narrow streets, visited an Asian museum housed in a colonial British mansion, checked out a Greek Orthodox Church, and climbed the steep hill to the top of the Old Fortress overlooking the town.

The most magical place for me in Corfu was the Old Fortress. Dating back to ancient times, the Venetians updated it in the Fourteenth Century. In this photo, Kathi Saage walks around a corner of one of the tunnels leading through the fort. — The most magical place for me in Corfu was the Old Fortress. I was fortunate to capture Kathi’s silhouette as she walked through the tunnel entrance. Dating back to ancient times, the Venetians updated the fortress in the Fourteenth Century.

I loved how the fort seems to be an organic part of the hill.

This photo and the next, both by Peggy, also capture the ancient feel of the Old Fortress on Corfu. — This photo and the next, both by Peggy, also capture the ancient feel of the fortress.

This probably served as a a gun placement in the fort. — This room probably served as a gun placement in the fort. The clock tower peaks out on the right. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

The clock tower located on the Old Fortress of Corfu. — The clock tower. The sky provided a dramatic backdrop.

A final view of the Old Fort. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson) — A final view of the Old Fort looking Irish green. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson)

A Corfu Street scene. Once again we enjoyed the narrow, car-free streets as we did time and again in Europe. — A Corfu street scene. Once again we enjoyed the narrow, car-free streets as we did time and again in Europe. Peggy’s brother John and his wife Frances are walking in front of us.

Another view of Corfu buildings with their shutters and balconies.

Peggy found this pigeon hanging out on the broken shutters of an abandoned building.

Lamp posts don't get much strange than the one we found outside of Corfu's Asian Museum located in an old British mansion. — Lamp posts don’t get much more strange than the one we found outside of Corfu’s Asian Museum located in an old British mansion. Does it qualify as art, or just weird?

The Asian Museum, BTW, includes an excellent collection of art, as represented by this painting.

The adventure involved in travel is experiencing new sites and cultures. This was a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church we walked into. — Part of the adventure in travel is experiencing new sites and cultures. This was a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church we wandered into.

There are some things that I am almost guaranteed to photograph when I travel…

ColorfulfFruit markets... — Colorful fruit markets…

My obligatory cat photo. I caught this guy sleeping on the seat of a motor bike at the entrance to the Old Fort on Corfu. It may be a new definition of contentment. — And animals… I caught this kitty sleeping on the seat of a motor bike catching some rays at the entrance to the Old Fortress. She may be a new definition of contentment. It’s a good place to wrap up today’s post.

FRIDAY’S POST: We made it up to Crater Lake National Park last week, practicing social distancing the whole way. Snow added to its natural beauty.

Blogging with WordPress in the Age of Coronavirus

March 23, 2020March 22, 2020 / Curt Mekemson / 40 Comments

A great blue heron eyed me suspiciously when I took its photo in Florence, Oregon. Peggy and I had gone over to the coast for my birthday three weeks ago. The town has several excellent restaurants and we had made it a point to visit several. They are closed now. Coronavirus has arrived. The world has changed.

This coming Thursday we were flying out to Fort Lauderdale in Florida to climb on a cruise ship that was going to take us through the Panama Canal. There were to be stops along the way in Costa Rica, Columbia, Nicaragua and Mexico. Peggy was super excited. She had lived in Panama in the late 70s BC. (The BC here stands for Before Curt. DC is During Curt. We are hoping to avoid the AC.) She wanted to see her old home at Fort Amador, to revisit where her daughter Tasha was born, and visit the Canal again.

I was equally excited. Just watching Peggy would have been enough. But Panama, Columbia and Nicaragua were new countries for me and I am always up for seeing new places. Cartagena has been on my bucket list for a long time. I figured I would get enough blog material to last up until summer! But it wasn’t to be.

We watched nervously as coronavirus made its way from China into other countries. Given the nature of the disease and its rapid spread, the President’s words that we had only 15 cases in the US that would soon number zero rang hollow. It seemed to us like it was time to gear up and get ready, not play down the danger. It was hardly rocket science, or so it seemed to us.

Nothing focused our concern more about the trip than people being stranded on cruise ships with a highly contagious disease. Countries were refusing to let them land. Reluctantly and sadly, we came to the conclusion that the trip wasn’t worth the risk and cancelled. A few days later Princess Cruise Lines cancelled all of its cruises. That’s how fast this pandemic has developed.

As my post goes up this morning, I expect that our Governor, Kate Brown, will issue the same stay-home order for Oregon that our neighbors in Washington to the north and California to the south have. Our trips into town will be limited to quick in and outs to buy groceries and other necessities. (And no, we aren’t hoarding toilet paper.) We will practice the same social/physical distancing and hand washing/use of sanitizers that people throughout the world now find themselves doing. And we will try ever so hard to avoid touching our faces. The mere thought of it makes my nose itch.

We are lucky in that we live on five acres out in the boonies with our property backed up to a million acres of national forest. Social/physical distancing doesn’t get any easier. Our property is excited that we are going to be around to give it more attention than in normally receives— and the star thistle is bummed that I will be around to yank it out by the roots. It’s a nasty plant that spreads rapidly like coronavirus, kills off native plants, and sucks up precious groundwater. I’ll probably do a blog on it. Woohoo. Also on my to-do list: go looking for Bigfoot. There’s a reason why the world’s only Bigfoot trap is located three miles from our house. And I may go searching for gold. Why not. An old gold mine is located a few hundred yards behind our house up in the forest. Maybe Bigfoot hangs out there. I’ll let you know.

And speaking of blogging, it is hard to imagine a more positive activity in these perilous times we are facing. For one, it is the ultimate in social/physical distancing. Two, it keeps me occupied. And three, most importantly, it allows for safe social interaction with a number of people I have come to consider as close, Internet friends over the past several years. So keep blogging, stay safe, and don’t scratch your nose.

As I was writing about Bigfoot, this teenage doe slipped in and started drinking out of our birdbath. I grabbed my camera. Wildlife is an important part of our entertainment here. I’ll be blogging about it as well. We should soon have fawns. And then there is the flicker, a large woodpecker that has decided the best way to call his love is to pound on our roof vents. It sounds like a jackhammer. We’ve had a number of discussions but it seems that nothing can get in the way of true love.

And finally, I’ll conclude with this butterfly hugging a flower, or so it seemed. A nice message. Take care.

NEXT POSTS: Still thinking about Wednesday. I may take you back to my journey down the Pacific Crest Trail, or off to Europe. Since travel is out, I have plenty of posts to remind me us of the how fun, interesting, and exciting travel there can be. Friday will be special. Peggy and I just made a trip up to Crater Lake National Park to see what it looks like in the winter. One word comes to mind: beautiful.

Wandering through Time and Place

Exploring the world with Curtis and Peggy Mekemson